


The Witching Hour

by hookandgranny



Category: Schneewittchen | Snow White (Fairy Tale), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Disney, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Disney, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, Halloween, One Shot, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-28 23:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8466319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hookandgranny/pseuds/hookandgranny
Summary: Snow White goes missing on All Hallows' Eve.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AU backstory to the events of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs [one-shot].

It was the witching hour, and the castle was silent.

On the seventh floor of the west wing, the flame of a single candle dipped and darted along the corridor to the Queen's chambers. The girl tiptoed down the velvet carpet, past the oil paintings of dead monarchs, past the gilded mirrors that reflected the rat's nest of black curls on her head and her sleep-rimmed eyes, past the windows that opened like hungry mouths beneath the moonlight.

She set the candle on the floor and pushed her shoulder against the heavy oak door, feeling it give beneath the weight of her feather-light frame with an agonizing creak. The Queen slept peacefully beneath a canopy of pale silk, her long, black lashes fluttering in the deepest cycles of sleep, her breath parting lips that put the petals of an adder's eyes to shame.

She was awakened with a pounce.

"Tilly..." The Queen groaned and rolled over, planting her face in the pillow with an undignified whump. "It cannot be morning. I know it is not morning, for you sound nothing like the blackbirds that warble at dawn, and you look nothing like the ray of sunlight that blinds my vision, and you feel nothing like the air that ices my skin. Please, my pet, wait until morning."

Tilly perched on her mother's hip and frowned.

"It's All Hallows' Eve, Mother. Can't we go out this time? Please?" She threw her arms around her mother's neck, trying in vain to pull the Queen from the tangle of warm pillows and blankets. "You said when I was old enough we could go. I want to go now!"

The Queen squinted at her daughter, her eyes like emeralds in the darkness. The castle was always empty this time of the year, and whether it was because the King was out for his annual hunting trip or because they feared her powers, she could not be certain. Even the guards refused to patrol the castle grounds, bound as they were by local law and superstition on the darkest day of the year. She had tried to protect her daughter from the whispers in the kingdom, but they circled like buzzards around a fresh carcass. Soon, Tilly would know what the world thought of her. What the world thought of them both.

"Yes," she whispered, her heart constricting as she saw her daughter's eyes widen with excitement. "Yes, darling, you're right. It is time."

She rose from the bed, wrapping her black robe tightly around her slender frame, and opened the wardrobe. From the ebony silks and bergamot gowns, she pulled two russet dresses and laid them gently on the bed.

"I think these will do. I had one of the servants make them up, just in case. No one will even know it's us."

Tilly wriggled into her dress and danced around the room. The coarse fabric bit into her skin, leaving her itchy and hot under the collar, and when it swished against her skin it sounded like a rainstorm. The girl sat on the floor and pouted.

"I don't like disguises. I want to wear my black gown and my black cape and I want a pointy hat like the old women in my storybooks."

The Queen peered into her mirror, watching her daughter, her perfect miniature self reflected in the glass. Outside, the sky was coal-black, lit by the fires of a million dying embers too far removed to cast their warmth on the earth. The witching hour was a quarter gone; somewhere in the kingdom, a hundred steepled churches boarded their stained glass windows and snuffed their holy candles, waiting for the hour of sin to pass by like the angel of death.

She swept her hair up into a pile, pinching her cheeks to get a natural flush. It's something, she thought. Better a shoddy disguise than an angry mob. It had been thirteen years since the villagers last caught a glimpse of their Queen, thirteen years since they had looked at her as she hoped they would never look at her daughter.

"I'm sorry darling, but these are the best we have. The less you look like royalty - the less you look like the snaggle-toothed hags in those picture-books - the safer we'll be. If the villagers suspect anything... well, with your father gone and the servants away, it's a danger I'd rather not expose you to on your first All Hallows' Eve. We'll go in three-quarters of an hour when the moon has risen a bit. Come, let's find a brush for that mess of curls."

Tilly didn't respond. The Queen looked around; the girl was nowhere to be seen, vanished like the ocean on a foggy morning.

"Tilly?"

Behind the curtains, not a peep. Under the bedclothes, only the lumps of the mattress. Behind the wardrobe, under the vanity, out the door, down the hallway, in the courtyard, past the castle gates, gone, gone, gone. The moonlight dripped down the hillside to the valley below, icing the rooftops of the nearest village. The Queen steadied herself against the iron gates, her eyed scanning the road below for a flutter of black curls, a flash of hazel eye and skin as white as newly-fallen snow.

"Bound and binding, binding bound," the Queen whispered. "See the sight, hear the sound. What was lost now is found. Bound and binding, binding, bound."

The clouds shuddered against the moon. Not a breath stirred from the sleeping kingdom.

She knew the citizens of her kingdom well; oh, how she knew them. For years, they kept to their superstitions like clockwork: midnight Mass, with its smoke and mirrors, holy water to banish wayward spirits, hollow-eyed saints to keep watch round the cathedral buttresses, and every All Hallows' Eve, the witches' ban. Every house was boarded up tight, every church window darkened. Anyone caught wandering outside was exiled to the deepest reaches of the Black Forest, the most extreme offenders left hanging from the tallest trees. During the midnight hour, all women were accused witches, all men devils, all children their spawn. It was a wicked and cruel world, and she cursed at the thought of her daughter in its clutches.

A dark look crossed the Queen's face.

She turned to face the castle, where the white spires cast long, pointed shadows across the grounds. Deep in the dungeon, past the prison chambers of old, a hidden lair kept the secrets of the dark arts. She had not practiced in years, but she could feel it calling to her through the darkness: the stench of the cauldron, the distressed leather of the spellbooks, the eerie whistle of a potion brewed just right. It was the call she felt every year at this hour, that old yearning to conjure black magic on the night when the immortal realm brushed its lips with the mortal earth and now, with her daughter's life in the balance, she could resist no longer.

If it was a witch they wanted, it was a witch they would get.

* * *

The constable shoved the girl forward.

"That's four this year," he snarled.

The villagers pressed their faces against the windowpanes of the houses around the town square, their eyes and mouths wide open. Four strangers stood in a line, four trespassers of the kingdom's sacred laws. The girl stared back at them, her fingers twisting nervously in the folds of her russet skirt. Next to her, the old woman wrapped her shawl tighter around her bony shoulders and hacked into her sleeve, spitting on the cobblestone street as the constable paced back and forth.

"It's not good to be out this time of night," he muttered to himself, "not good at all. Quarter-hour till the witchin' stops, and no sign yet of the priest." He paused and surveyed the transgressors: the frail woman, the young man, the boy and girl. None of them looked like demon-spawn, but that was just the thing - you could never tell where the devil was lurking.

From beyond the square, the sound of footsteps filled the air. The constable cocked his head. The steps were too slow for this time of night, too light to belong to the local priest. He was not in the mood to add to the night's total. Four, even with the two kids, was already pushing his limit.

It was the wind he noticed then, the way the weather vanes turned their faces to the east as the stranger rounded the corner. Her robes swept over the streets, black as the spaces between the stars, her proud, fair face narrowed in anger.

A witch. As he lived and breathed, a real witch during the witching hour on All Hallows' Eve. He suddenly felt like this situation was above his pay grade.

The witch paused in the center of the square. She could hear the gasps and shrieks and howls of the villagers, locked safely behind their doors and windows as they gawked and wailed, either because they had finally seen a witch or because they believed that there were now five demons in their midst. The constable took a tentative step toward the witch, his eyes darting from her to the four and back again.

"Take one more step," said the witch, "and I will call down the fire of Hecate from the sky and incinerate the very core of your being."

The constable stopped. He squinted, unsure whether to press her further. The old woman hacked and spit on the ground.

"I wouldn't test her if I were you, boy," she cackled.

"Look... look here," he stammered. "The only law round these parts is that of the church and the King, and you're steppin' on both. Just... just leave now, peacefully, and there won't be any trouble."

The witch reached out and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, pulling him up until he dangled just above her head. With her head tilted back, he could see the faint glimmer of gold beneath her cloak - a crown, perhaps, or the mark of the devil.

"Bones of anger, bones to dust," she hissed, "full of fury, revenge is just. Make thine enemy turn to dust. Torment, fire, out of control... with this hex I curse your soul."

The church bell struck one. The constable dropped to his knees, trembling. The old woman spat.

"Never," said the witch, "will you punish any who walk in this kingdom, not by the name of your gods or any other. Now begone!"

The square emptied slowly, first the constable running, fast as his legs could carry him, then the young man, clutching the hand of the boy, then the old woman, strolling as on a summer's day. The witch knelt in front of the girl and cupped the child's cheek in her palm.

"Why did you run, Tilly? You had me frightened half to death."

The girl collapsed in her mother's arms. "Are you really going to hurt that man, Mother?"

"No, darling." The Queen smoothed Tilly's curls, pressing her close as the villagers returned their noses to their own business. In the church, the priest was beginning his morning prayers, and she could smell the incense rising. "I only said that to frighten him. He wouldn't know a real curse if it bit him in the - well, no matter. Magic is not a tool to harm people, remember that."

Tilly grasped her mother's hand as they stood and turned toward the castle. It was a warm night, serene and still, and the witching hour was past.

"We are witches, aren't we?"

The Queen looked down at her daughter. She could still feel the pull of the dark magic within her, the stirring in her breast when she saw the fear glisten in the constable's eye, the raw power that coursed through her veins as he struggled against her iron grip. The stars burned in her eyes.

"Yes, my pet. We are."


End file.
